"Eric Hovde, a Republican candidate for Senate in Wisconsin, floated the bizarre idea that people in nursing homes should be disenfranchised because they’re simply too close to death to be 'in a point to vote.'”
International Society for Horticultural Science doubling down on ageism again. They already limit their student memberships to those 28 & younger.
While the majority of folks who are students and early career are young, not all are. And if there were less ageism & ableism, there'd be more older folks applying their life experience to new fields.
"In other countries like Norway and Japan, older people are revered and respected. In America, not so much. The advertising industry has contributed to the disparagement of us old folks through derogatory portrayals that reinforce outdated stereotypes. The wisdom, experience, patience, and empathy older people bring to the table are character traits you can’t have when you’re younger because you simply haven’t lived as long."
"Getting old is one thing… Losing one's mind is quite another."
And: "Biden is getting older. Trump is losing his mind."
But: "Despite the clear signs that Trump is in an active state of mental disintegration, a broad swath of Americans have somehow gotten it into their heads that Biden is worse."
Wonder what role the media are playing to produce that result?
"Stories about Biden’s age swamped the media [with Hur's report]. Judd Legum of Popular Information found that in the four days after Hur’s report appeared, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal together published 81 articles about Hur’s assessment of Biden’s memory, suggesting that Biden was sliding into dementia and should not be running for reelection."
"Hours before the hearing was about to begin, the Department of Justice released a transcript of Biden’s interviews, held in the two days after Hamas attacked Israel as he rushed to respond to that crisis. The transcripts belied Hur’s portrayal of Biden’s answers; among other things, he clearly knew the exact date Beau died."
Hur is a Republican hitman, doing what GOP hitmen always do. And the media remain shamefully pliant as these games are played.
"Hur wrote a slanderous report that claimed Joe Biden was 'an elderly man with a poor memory.' The primary evidence for Hur’s slander was Biden’s alleged inability to recall the date of his son Beau’s death.
The transcript shows that Hur’s claims are despicable lies. In fact, Joe Biden volunteered the month and day of Beau Biden’s death—May 30."
"The media lapped up Hur’s lies and slander without question. The revelation that Hur lied about and distorted Biden’s testimony is receiving a fraction of the media attention that Hur’s weaponized lies received in the first instance.
That outcome was predictable because Hur is a MAGA political partisan."
"First came the transcript, in which Joe Biden was clearly documented to remember the date his son Beau died, if not the year (that’s normal for most people). And then came the hearing in which Robert Hur could not remember complementing Biden on his memory until Democrats read him the transcript."
~ Greg Dworkin
Robert is a Republican hitman. Hitmen typically have no shame.
"So Hur said that Biden couldn't remember when his son died within several years and that was proof that his memory was shot but now the transcript has been released and it turns out Biden immediately recalled the MONTH and DAY."
Robert Tracinski points to the ugly ageist meme that Biden's old, and notes:
"And it’s not just the right. For months now, Biden’s age has been the white whale of the New York Times."
Then he adds,
All of these discussions about whether Biden or Trump are showing signs of an aging brain merely demonstrate how much people are missing the point of this election."
"Up to the very moment Biden took the stage, the commentariat was wondering: How will he come across? Will he trip on the way to the lectern, freeze while on camera, or reveal some other ‘doddering’ weakness? And, how can he make anyone care about what he’s done?
You didn’t hear any of that once the speech was over."
"The oldest president in history just gave the fiercest State of the Union address in history.
Joe Biden proves once again that age is nothing but a number. …
After weeks of media coverage stoking concerns about his mental acuity, Biden’s ferocious speech and gleeful, unscripted engagement with unruly Republican backbenchers undercut attempts to make his age the central issue."
Dan Pfeifer writes that "Thursday night demonstrated the folly of Trump’s 'Sleepy Joe' strategy":
"Donald Trump and the Republicans smelled blood. President Biden had recently been on the defensive about his age. A series of polls released over the weekend heightened Democratic concerns. The Republicans knew the press would treat a misstatement or minor gaffe during Biden’s State of the Union address as a campaign-ending transgression."
"Before the speech, MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned Super PAC, released a brutal ad concerning Biden’s age that questioned whether he would survive a second term.
And just to twist the knife, they ran the ad during Morning Joe, which, like Message Box, is a staple of the President’s media diet.
Republican House members in the room tried to goad Biden into a mistake."
"Marjorie Taylor Greene, dressed in full MAGA regalia, staked Biden out as he walked to the dais and then tried to interrupt him while he spoke about border security.
None of it worked. Biden delivered a boffo performance, and the media coverage and online conversation have all been about the strength and vigor he demonstrated."
The ugly ageism would not have legs without the media, without may callow, heartless and soulless young journalists baying for blood because Biden is "old." As is Trump, but he's given a free pass….
I'm a firm believer in the dictum by which I was raised: What goes around, comes around.
I hope when those young reporters live to be old and gray, as many of them likely will, they'll look back and feel remorse — even shame — at their behavior these days.
"Joe Biden came to play. And the GOP clown car rolled on. …
It’s time to ask a simple question: How many times does Biden have to prove [the media] wrong before we all see the truth? It is this: Biden is a formidable opponent, a skillful and experienced negotiator, and as a campaigner he is quick on his feet, affable and eminently re-electable."
"Republicans and cable news pundits had claimed that Joe Biden would prove to be a doddering old man incapable of making it up the stairs to the podium— much less delivering a coherent speech.
"Washington Post’s headline from Thursday morning did not age well.
Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer wrote a 'pre-analysis' of the State of the Union address under the headline, Biden’s SOTU challenge: Old-man vibes. This article is available to all and you can express your feelings to the reporters by sending emails to the journalists at leighann.caldwell@washpost.com and theodoric.meyer@washpost.com."
As deeply rooted ageism is on full display and out of the closet in the US right now, some reflections:
One of the hardest things about growing old in this period of American history dominated by the ugly, hateful fever dreams of Donald Trump's supporters is the ongoing discovery that — pardon the language, please — a whole lot of one's fellow citizens are complete shits.
The vulnerable — people of color, immigrants, many LGBTQ people — could already have testfied loudly to the fact that many fellow citizens are total shits. If they'd been allowed to testify and the rest of us had been willing to listen to the testimony….
Now a lot of the rest of us are being forced to see that a sizable number of Americans just do not intend to care about anyone other than themselves and those like themselves, that they exult self-righteously in being given permission by their idolized leader and their churches to attack and hate demeaned others,
that they will gleefully tear things up just because doing that satisfies their atavistic urges, that they will make up grotesque lies and shop those around proud as peacocks on social media, etc.
Not a pretty or safe world for those of us in our senior years — not a few of whom are a part of the dynamics I'm describing here — to grow up in.
Pulitzer-winning Marilynne Robinson on Biden's age and the ageism of American culture in general:
"You have to live to be 80 to find this out: Anybody under 50 feels they’re in a position to condescend to you. You get boxed into this position where people who deal with you are making assumptions about your intellect. It’s very disturbing."
"Most people my age are just fine. What can I say? It’s a kind of good fortune that America is categorically incapable of accepting: that someone with a strong institutional memory, who knows how things are supposed to work, who was habituated to their appropriate functioning is president. I consider him a gift of God. All 81 years of him."